Priceline Hotel: 4* Paris (St Germain-Latin Quarter-Montparnasse) Le Meridien

[musicguru]

Hello!

I am planning to stay in Paris from 19 Sept - 23 Sept (4 nights) in St Germain-Latin Quarter area, 4* hotel.

Done my research and most bids won for this area 4* is Marriot Rive Gauche, at ard $105-110, but not for the same dates.

Have tried bidding from $98 (counter offer at $120), $102, $104 and $108 (counter offer at $129) and still FAILED. Not too sure if i had a free rebid using(Batignolles - Montmartre - Republique) zone which lists as no 4*, however someone mentioned here that there is no free rebid for 4* Paris so i didnt dare to try.

Any advice? Not looking at staying other areas due to bad reviews on the other hotels listed in other zones.

Thanks a lot, this is a great forum! Ive been using the PRICELINE link for all bids =)

[Romelle]

There is discussion of free rebids in the FAQ area or you could search on the phrase.

You are wise to be cautious, but it really isn't that hard to determine for yourself if an area can be used as a free rebid. Go to Priceline as if you were bidding. Click ONE area and see what buttons light up in front of the different star levels. If the button lights up (as in you can bid on it), there really is a hotel available in that area. Furthermore, if maybe a 4* button doesn't light up, BUT a 5* button lights up, it is still not a free rebid at the 4* level since Priceline could choose to upgrade you.

Click the areas one at a time.

For the record, it is true that there are no 4* free rebids in Paris, but next time you are bidding I think it would be a good idea to prove it to yourself so it makes sense to you. I'm guessing maybe you were looking at the hotel lists here when you got the idea the B-M-R zone might be usable as a free rebid? The place you want to check in right on Priceline. And you want to check again from time to time as it can change.

Romelle

Alternatively, take a peak at Seattle. Great fun for bidding because there are a whole lot of free rebid areas at different levels.

[musicguru]

Dear Romelle,

Thank you for your reply. That is exactly what I did to check for free rebid zones, and even when I clicked on (Batignolles - Montmartre - Republique) zone, 4* still lit up. So i did not add that in for a free rebid.

My bids up to $108 has still been rejected. What should I do? Continue to increase bid in $5 increments after every 24hrs?

I would really like to stay in St Germain zone.

[Romelle]

Those counter-offers indicate there really is something available in the zone. If your budget is OK with it, keep moving up. You can do it in smaller steps than $5 if you have the patience/time for it. You do have over a month left. Sometimes people are successful at only a few dollars over their bid, but sometimes they have to go on up. Some people swear by a formula of 1/2 the counter-offer plus $1, but I am convinced it is more random than that.

You might consider finding a cancelable back-up reservation.

Romelle

[thereuare]

I woudl increase by $5 each day for the next 3 days.

While this offer is currently (at the time the counter offer was given) available for $129/nite, if you were to only increase say $1 (as an extreme example) it would take you nearly 3 weeks to reach the counter-offer, at which point the currently available hotel could be sold with no additional inventory added, the offer pulled down by the hotel, etc.

If you were bidding some rural area with not much bidding activity i would think it woudl be a bit safer to bid in smaller dollar increments, but i'm sure LOTS of people are bidding for Paris every day, and i thnk $5/day is a good trade-off between increasing your bid amount and getting this take care of in a timely manner.

Please use these PRICELINE and HOTWIRE links to begin your travel purchases.

[musicguru]

Thank you for your advice!

I finally got the 4* Le Meridien Montparnasse at $118, after bidding continuously from $98. I was really aiming for the Marriot, and was dissappointed that I ended up with Le Meridien, based on the horrible reviews on TA.

Nevertheless, thank you for your advice. I used your PRICELINE link for both my Paris and London bidding. (still trying to get a london hotel, that will be on a new topic).

[yellowdog]

Congratulations on your success!

Thank you for sharing your win with the board and using our PRICELINE link to begin your bidding :)

Let's hope the hotel is better than the TA reviews in the end

Yellowdog.